


Aftermath

by FabulaRasa



Category: DCU, DCU (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-02
Updated: 2014-04-02
Packaged: 2018-01-17 21:03:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1402366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FabulaRasa/pseuds/FabulaRasa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is intended as an immediate sequel to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/1162880">Cold Comfort</a>, the Bruce/Hal hypothermia fic. It can also stand alone as just some good old-fashioned smut, if you'd prefer not to read the previous work. I say smut, but what I really mean is smut with some angst in the middle. A smut sandwich. Enjoy. Get your own damn drink, and no I will not bring it to you in front of the TV. Jeez.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aftermath

"God— _fucking_ dammit, you feel so good."

They were grappling on Bruce's bed, his bed on the Watchtower, his bed which was conveniently some ten paces from where they had begun kissing. If kissing was even the word for it. Some slightly more violent and hungrier verb was probably called for, something that sounded sexier than "chewing each other's faces off" even if that was pretty damn accurate. 

The only problem with Bruce's bed was that it was a _twin_ bed. Who the hell did that? Every other room on the Watchtower had a nice spacious bed. But when it came to his own quarters, Bruce had plumped for Psychotically Spartan as his overall design theme. And what sort of six-foot grown man opted for a twin bed, especially a man who tipped the scale at 200 if he weighed an ounce? Nothing like lying underneath Bats to get a feel for the sheer heft of the man.

"What?" Bruce's mouth was hovering over his, and he was frowning.

"Oh. Sorry. Just thinking."

"About what?"

"If you must know, interior decorating."

Bruce's eyes narrowed. Hal laughed. "Come on, I would have thought gayness would be a plus, in this particular situation. And by situation, I mean you lying on top of me with your boner cutting off the blood supply to my lower body."

Bruce's laugh was a whuff of air, and his reward was a punishing kiss and a hand wedged between them, pushing at Hal's crotch. "Not sure it's just me that's the problem," Bruce murmured, the heel of his hand doing things to Hal's cock that made him groan and push back into Bruce's hand. 

"God that feels good," he gasped. 

They were half-naked, or getting there. He was a bit more naked than Bruce, because as it turned out Bruce's ability to focus in a crisis situation was slightly better than his own, and Bruce had been able to get more of Hal's clothes off. The hand between them was now working his zip. "Christ. You're gonna make me come before you even get your shirt off."

"You have no idea what I want to do to you," Bruce said. Somewhere across the room was Hal's shirt. He had lost that before they had even made it to the bed. Bruce had at least gotten out of his armor, but that left this skin-tight bodysuit-like thing still on him, and it was proving frustratingly difficult to peel off. Bruce was eating his neck in ways that made his cock jump, and that hand was still pushing into him, feeling his length, rubbing at him. It was like he was trying to make him come in his pants. Only—

No, wait, there went his pants. Bruce had finally got the zip on his uniform down, and was doing a fair job of pushing the pants down his hips one-handed. Hal rolled them over so he was on top and ground into Bruce. Bruce's head tipped back—his mouth open, tendons on his neck taut. "You like that, huh," Hal whispered. "You like grinding."

"Fuck," Bruce said, just a moan of sound. His hands were gripping Hal's ass. He was rubbing up into Hal's cock. _Christ, if I'd known you liked dick this much, I would have thrown you against a wall three years ago_ , Hal thought.

"Off," Bruce husked, tugging at what remained of Hal's clothes. 

"Okay, but this is getting more than a little unfair," Hal said. Clearly the pants situation wasn't going to get any better as long as they were still rolling around on top of each other like horny teenagers at a drive-in, so he hoisted himself up and off the bed. Bruce propped on an elbow to watch. The look in his eyes made Hal's hands shake, as he peeled off his boots and pushed down his uniform pants.

He slipped off his underwear, and then he was finally and fully naked and hard in front of Bruce, and if before he had thought the phrase "devouring him with his eyes" was grocery-store bodice-ripper cliché, he no longer did. Bruce's gaze was consuming. He stood there, with Bruce looking at him. He should get back on the bed. But he stood there. It was odd, how he wasn't moving.

"Hal," Bruce said. 

The shaking in his hands had spread, somehow. It was all up his arms now, and into his legs. He could feel the tremors in the back of his neck, even. He was trembling, all over. "Hal," Bruce said again. 

"Shit," Hal said. He pulled his pants back up, as fast as he could. He grabbed for his shirt and pulled it over him.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I have to go." Whatever expression was on Bruce's face, he didn't know, because he didn't look. 

Bruce didn't try to stop him.

* * *

He made it back to his quarters, somehow. Thank God no one saw him or tried to talk to him. If Barry had seen him, he would have known something was wrong. Hell, if the average janitor had seen him, he would have known something was wrong. But he made it back and got the doors locked behind him before he collapsed against them. The trembling was subsiding, a little bit. He was still cold, though.

He decided the thing he needed was a hot shower, to get warm. Only he couldn't quite stand the thought of being naked again, so he got in the shower with his uniform on and stood under the hot spray. And after a while that got tiring, so he sat down. It wasn't that he was curled in his shower in the fetal position with all his clothes on. 

Only after about fifteen minutes of that did it hit him what he had just done. He saw Bruce's bedroom, and himself gathering his clothes and running out the door while Bruce stared at him like he was a loon. Bruce had wanted to be with him. Bruce had—

He turned his face into the spray. A pit opened up in his stomach, and all his internal organs slipped down it. In a minute he would slide down the drain. "Shit," he whispered, shutting his eyes. 

He didn't get out until the water ran cold, and with the Watchtower's facilities, that was probably an unhealthy length of time. His uniform had pretty much glued itself to his body, but he managed to get out of it and into something soft and warm. He changed quickly, and avoided looking at himself in the mirror. And then he sat on the sofa, in order to relax. But reading didn't really seem possible, or watching anything, so he just sat there. It wasn't that he was curled on his sofa staring into space.

The thing to do was to go to the Guardians and request reassignment to another sector of space. He had some serious cred with them, until the next time he squandered it, and they would probably do it, no questions asked. He would even take a lower-ranking assignment, if it meant they could transfer him quickly. With any luck, he wouldn't even have to see Bruce again. 

But no. That would be the coward's way. _I'm actually fine with that_ , said the voice in his head. No. No. He would find Bruce later on, sometime tomorrow maybe, and apologize. Bruce's eyes would be remote. Hal pictured him with the cowl back on. In response to whatever half-baked apology he burbled out, Bruce would simply grunt, and look away. The man who had been on that bed with him—aroused, tender, hungry, eager, whose eyes had looked at him like no one's eyes ever had—he wouldn't see that man again. 

"You fuck-up," he said to his clenched fist. "It was sex. How the hell do you fuck that up?" _Maybe by having a complete and total freak-out and running out of the room like a goddamned idiot?_

He would come up with something in between now and tomorrow. Bad Thai food. Sorry, Bats, I really shouldn't have had that leftover pad thai before I dropped by, no hard feelings, right? He could do that. He could make up something about being sick. That was. . . remotely credible, wasn't it?

_Coward._

"Will you please shut up," he said to the ceiling. After a while the tight thing in his middle relaxed, fractionally, or at least enough for him to lie down. He shut his eyes and tried to sleep. Maybe he succeeded, because when the doorpad binged he had a hard time placing himself, in that weird unsettling post-nap vertigo. Which was what it always felt like, waking up on the Watchtower, divorced from the rhythms of night and day, of sunlight and moonlight. He never did sleep well, in space. 

"Yeah, hang on," he called, and whooshed open his door before he remembered why that was such a spectacularly bad idea.

But he did, the second he saw Bruce standing there.

It was Bruce, actually, not Batman. A black turtleneck and pants, and still he managed to look like he was in cape and cowl. His face was a studied blank. He was just standing there. "May I come in?" he asked, because of course Hal was still standing there, frozen. 

Hal licked his lips and nodded. He stood aside. He noticed Bruce gave him an extra inch or so of space, coming through the door. Bruce's hands were in his pockets.

"Ah," Hal said, as the doors whooshed shut. "Listen. About. . . earlier."

"We don't need to discuss that," Bruce said, holding up a hand. "And I don't intend to stay long. I just wanted to let you know, in case you were worried, that I don't need an explanation. 'No' never needs an explanation."

"Ah," Hal said again. "Well. . ."

"It never happened," Bruce said. "Our working relationship will not be affected in the slightest. You don't need to think about it again. That's all I came to say."

Hal stared at the floor. Somewhere there were words he ought to say. He could feel the shame crawling across his cheekbones, like a physical thing. It tightened and burned his skin, like being rubbed with bleach. 

"It," he said, and swallowed. He discovered that if he chewed a corner of his lip until he tasted the blood and pulp, the shame scouring his face became marginally less painful. 

"It wasn't a no," he managed.

Bruce said nothing. For a minute Hal wondered if he had heard him. And then he thought, _of course he must have, this is **his** no, which he was politely framing as **yours** , you massive, massive fucking idiot. Jesus H. Christ. _

He found the courage to look at Bruce, and saw nothing but those eyes looking at him. "Wasn't it?" Bruce said. 

Hal clenched his fists tighter. "I'm a little fucked up," he said. "I didn't mean for that to happen. It's just that—it's a little hard to explain exactly what. . ."

"Hal," Bruce said, the same tone he had used in his bedroom earlier. "I told you, I don't require an explanation."

"But you deserve one."

"Hal. I don't need an explanation, because what happened is not exactly a mystery. It doesn't take a detective to put it together." Bruce's eyes were the same as before. He wasn't sure how he could ever have thought they were remote. Transparent, maybe. Too much light inside them, and it made their gaze too bright and uncomfortable. If anything, they were eyes you could see too much in. 

"Right," Hal said, around his dry mouth. 

"I should go."

"Please don't."

"All right." 

"Unless you want to," Hal said. "Which would be a perfectly reasonable thing to want. Like I said, I am pretty fucked up. I wasn't aware just quite how fucked up, apparently. So if this is the stop where you get off, that is totally okay by me."

"Do you notice me going anywhere?"

"No, but that could be your general social awkwardness."

Bruce's mouth twitched in what might have been a suppressed smile. "Possibly. May I ask you a question?"

"Sure."

"When you say _it's not a no_ , does that mean. . ."

"It means, I need to take this quite a bit more slowly."

"Yes," Bruce said.

"It means. . . look, can I say yes to you and no to sex? Is that a thing we could do?"

"Yes," Bruce said again, and Hal just looked at him.

"You're kidding me. That's—that's pretty much the worst deal ever. Why the hell would anyone ever say yes to that?"

"I don't know, Hal. Maybe you'd better hire a detective for that one."

"Hey, don't get mouthy with me." But he gave him a slow smile, and Bruce—tentatively—echoed it. They stood there, just looking at each other, until it occurred to Hal that Bruce was not going to close the space between them, and could you really blame him. 

"Can we kiss again," Hal said. 

"We can do anything you want. But it's going to have to be your call." 

"I. . . can live with that. I just—right now, I kind of just want to make out with you." He put a hand on Bruce's neck, felt the small twitch of pulse. He put his mouth on Bruce's. "You showered," he murmured into Bruce's mouth. 

"So did you."

"Bruce."

"Mmm."

"What did you do in the shower?"

"My hair, my body. I only shave my legs on alternate Tuesdays."

Hal had hands on both sides of Bruce's face now, tipping that gorgeous mouth closer. Slow, he reminded himself. Nice and slow. "What did I tell you," he said, "about the mouth. You know what I meant."

"You're asking if I jacked off."

Hearing those words from Bruce's mouth— _jacked off_ —spiked his chest with a cold lance of arousal. He could imagine exactly what it looked like. "Did you?"

Bruce nodded against his head, a small curt gesture. He wondered if Bruce was embarrassed. His own boner, because it had not the first clue about shame or embarrassment, was happily springing back to life, like some retarded demon-child that remembered it had been deprived of cookies and ice cream earlier and returned, clamoring for more and banging on the window of the house it had just burned down.

"And how long ago was that?" Hal's voice was still soft against Bruce's neck, as he kissed him. He could feel Bruce trying to hold himself still, trying not to grab for him. It really should not have been this much of a turn-on. 

"A while." He didn't even think Bruce was trying for the Batman voice; his voice had just dropped several registers of its own accord.

"Well, maybe we could lie down for a bit."

"I thought—you don't have to—we could—"

Hal kissed him again. Mainly he needed to lie down because kissing Bruce made him literally dizzy. "Come lie down with me," he whispered. "I'll stop when I have to. Before I have to. Is that okay?"

Bruce nodded, and Hal could hear him swallow. He led Bruce into his bedroom—the one with a reasonably sized bed, thank you very much. He lay down and pulled Bruce with him. He noticed Bruce was keeping his hands as much to himself as possible. He also noticed how fast Bruce was breathing. 

"Just make out with me, okay?"

"God," Bruce panted, and folded Hal into his arms, kissed him savagely. Hal curled a leg over Bruce's hip and they rocked together like that, feeling, groping. Every few minutes Bruce would pause, and shut his eyes, and Hal knew he was trying to slow it down. 

"If you need to come," Hal said, "just tell me."

"I do have some self-control. Not much, where you're concerned, but enough."

"Really," Hal said, sliding a hand under Bruce's shirt. His skin was burning hot. 

Bruce's eyes were checking in with him. "Is this all right?" 

"Yeah," Hal said. "This is nice."

Bruce looked like he wanted to say something more—like there was a lot he wanted to say, actually. Hal watched him close his eyes again, briefly, and then open them. Bruce's hand was on the side of his face, his thumb stroking. And then they were kissing again. Bruce's hip brushed his, and then he jerked away. 

"Bruce. You can touch me. I'm not going to. . . It's fine."

"Please don't let me hurt you."

"Bruce. Babe. You did not _hurt_ me. I flipped out because—it was the naked thing, all right? I just. . . I can't do naked, right now. The thing where I'm naked and you're not. Does that make sense?"

Bruce nodded. "Power differential," he said, and Hal's throat closed, briefly. It was just that Bruce had put his finger on it so exactly. The images he was trying to hold at bay rushed forward to claim him. He beat them back. Bruce's eyes were still watching him. "I'm sorry," Bruce said. 

"Just make out with me some more, okay?"

"As long as you want," Bruce murmured against his face. Hal's cock was well and truly aching now. He stopped himself when he realized he was humping Bruce's leg like a poorly trained Labrador. 

"Don't stop," Bruce said, rubbing his leg against Hal's crotch. "Do you want my hand?"

"I just. . . God yes."

Bruce grabbed his hand, and for a second he didn't get it, until he realized Bruce was leading his hand to his own zip, getting him to unzip himself. The intense consideration of that wrung him. That was the word for all this. Intense. Just. . . intense. Had he seriously thought that going to bed with Bruce would be anything but? 

"What would be easier," Bruce was whispering. "Do you want to turn around? Let me jack you from behind?"

"No," he said hastily. "Like this."

And before he had time to think about it any more, Bruce's hand was tugging at his cock, a steady insistent motion. Hal shut his eyes and groaned. He was fucking Bruce's hand. Bruce had pulled Hal's leg up and was rubbing himself on that, rubbing himself while he jacked Hal. 

"Let me," Hal said, and he unzipped him, got out that beautiful meaty cock. It was wet at the tip, sticky with pre-cum. Bruce's arm started shaking, but he didn't stop jacking Hal. He slowed his strokes to match Hal's. They were watching each other, mouths colliding occasionally. 

"Hal," Bruce said, and his voice sounded loud in the room where they had not been talking.

"Yeah."

"There's something I want, but if you don't want to, just tell me. All right?"

"What is it?"

"Can I suck you?"

"Oh fuck," Hal panted, his head arching back into the pillows. "Oh Jesus, fuck yes." In two seconds Bruce's mouth had closed on him. No, not Bruce's mouth—Bruce's whole goddamned throat. He was deep-throating him.

"I'm gonna come, oh Christ I'm gonna come," he moaned. He was arching up, his heels pushing into the bed. "Bruce—you need to move—fuck I can't—"

He felt the small cough reflex of Bruce's throat as he came, felt it squeeze his cock, and it only made him come harder. He felt Bruce swallowing as the room convulsed, spun out into space. A third wave wrung him, and he kneaded Bruce's shoulder as he kept coming down his throat. 

He was limp against the pillow, dazed and destroyed, when Bruce's mouth was at his ear, Bruce's body stretched next to his. "I hope," Bruce panted. "I hope that felt as good as it tasted." He looked like the one who had just come his brains out—face flushed, pupils blown, arm moving fast and. . . what?

Bruce was jerking himself, desperately. "Stop," Hal said angrily, and rolled them so he was pinning Bruce. "Goddammit, you said I was calling the shots here and I did not fucking give you permission to jack yourself. You'll come when I say."

"Yes," Bruce moaned, and Hal tucked it away for future use, how much Bruce appeared to like that. 

"You're greedy," Hal said. "You already came today."

Bruce made a noise in his throat. He didn't seem to be in control of what his hips were doing. "I would pay good money," Hal said, "to see what filthy jack-off fantasies you think about. I bet that is some twisted shit right there."

"Hal," he panted. 

"You close?"

"God—tell me—if this is—okay—can I—"

"Babe, it is all kinds of okay. Come for me. Let me watch."

Bruce's groan was massive. He turned his head and bit his lip. He shot in beautiful white arcs up onto his shirt. Hal cradled his balls, stroked the soft skin underneath. What he really wanted was to kiss him there, to put his mouth all over Bruce's cock and the tender underneath parts, but he was smart enough to know that was going to go all kinds of dark places for him, and Bruce did not deserve round two of My Spectacular Meltdown when the man just wanted to get off in peace. He looked up to see Bruce's eyes back on him, and Bruce absently stroking the arm that was stroking his balls. That was a little freaky, how fast Bruce appeared to come back online after an orgasm. 

"Stop looking at me like I'm going to flip out at any minute."

"Sorry." 

"You didn't do anything wrong. That wasn't the problem, before." Hal reached for a corner of the bedspread and wiped Bruce, tried to put him back together a little bit. He left the cock out though. He kind of wanted to see it soft and vulnerable, kind of wanted to touch it some more. He tucked himself back in, though, arranged his own clothes. He knew Bruce was watching him, maybe making more deductions he wouldn't say anything about. 

He lay back down beside Bruce, and they watched each other. "You could sleep here," he said. He watched Bruce weighing that one. 

"I sleep naked," Bruce said. "So that's for maybe another time. But I'll stay as long as you want." 

They folded into each other, and let their hands do more exploring, stroking. "Say some stuff," Hal said. "I can physically hear you censoring yourself. You're going to give yourself an ulcer. Or thyroid trouble."

"Thyroid trouble," Bruce said with a frown. 

"Hey, I know stuff, I was pre-med. For three weeks, before I switched. I sort of had it in mind I might be an Air Force surgeon. But then I switched, because fighter planes."

"They don't let the surgeons fly those?"

"Turns out no."

"Your gifts were wasted."

"I know, right? An American tragedy. So say what you were thinking, just then. Unless it was just gas."

"I was thinking. . . I was thinking I liked what you said. What you. . . called me."

Hal hit rewind and tried to figure it out. He smiled when he did. "Oh," he said. "Yeah? You liked that?"

"I liked that." 

Hal hauled himself up so he was more or less on top of Bruce. "Well," he said, "I'll have to come up with an excuse to call you that in a League meeting, _babe_."

"Do and I will slice off your balls."

Hal laughed, and rolled off. Bruce's arm snaked around him, pulling him back in. So that was something else Bruce had liked. They lay there for a while like that. There was a small window in here—nothing like the larger window in the living room, just a round porthole. But it was enough to watch space slide by, as the Watchtower slowly revolved.

"I feel like there are things I should tell you," Hal said eventually. He felt the slow evenness of Bruce's inhales. The hand that stroked his hair stopped, and then resumed.

"You don't have to."

"What, so it would be okay with you if I just randomly flipped out about some sex stuff, and if I was never really able to be naked, and if all the time you're wondering when am I going to start freaking out in the middle of a blow job or something? If there were things I was just never able to do?"

Bruce was quiet. "I think that depends," he said, after a while. "Could we still do this?"

Hal raised up, and this time he studied Bruce for a long time. "You're serious," he said.

"Yes."

"Bruce. Babe. If you felt like that, why didn't you. . . you know, sooner?"

"I realize fear of rejection is not something you can relate to, but it's something most normal human beings experience."

Hal laughed, a deep, low-in-his-belly sound. "Okay, I'm just gonna take a moment once again to appreciate getting a lecture from Batman on _normal people_ , because that shit is never gonna get old. And then I'm gonna say, what the fuck? Bruce, like half the people you come in contact with—no, make that closer to seventy percent of the people you come in contact with, men and women—fall in love with you."

"They tend to get over it," Bruce said, with just a small slide of his eyes to the side.

Hal lay back down and wrapped Bruce's heavy arm back over himself as a kind of anchor. If he didn't, they might float away into space. Out the porthole, into the crisp spangled darkness encircling the Watchtower.

"Not everyone," he said.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [On the Edge of a Burning Light](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1503959) by [azephirin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/azephirin/pseuds/azephirin)




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